And A Dead Man Can Speak
by Amledo
Summary: Post Battle of Hogwarts. EWE. Harry/Severus. Harry defeats Voldemort, but it seems a hollow victory as he is convinced that the man he loves is dead. Severus lies recovering in the Great Hall, believing Harry dead. Draco decides to fix this.


(A/N: So this is going to be my first Harry/Severus pairing fic. I don't own Harry Potter, trust me, I would have ruined it if I had because I was in 3rd grade when it started. Anyway, I know that some of you don't like slash or have only followed me for my Severus as a mentor sort of fics, so if you don't want to read this then all that you need to do is to click back and we will pretend that this never happened. No, this isn't distracting me from anything else that I've been writing, so don't you worry. And without further racking up word count with unnecessary ramblings, I give you Snarry!)

And A Dead Man Can Speak

Harry scrubbed tears of frustration and physical pain from his cheeks, a Hero wasn't allowed to cry, a Hero wasn't supposed to feel defeated in the moments following a victory. But here he was, on his knees in the mud, chest heaving with poorly controlled sobs, his wand still clutched in his hand like a lifeline. It had never occurred to him, just what the cost would be of success. He knew that they had lost lives along the way, but somehow he had convinced himself that the final battle would be relatively free of casualties. He had dreams of defeating Voldemort and being embraced by his friends and looking across the battlefield and seeing Death Eaters chained up and his own allies cheering.

This was not that. There was so much death, so many lost on both sides, young and old alike. Hermione had been pulled away from Ron's body by Fred and George, she was still screaming and crying and beating at them as they held her between them. Neville was rocking Luna in his arms and she was still holding onto Ginny's hand, neither cried, but both wore looks of people who had expected death for far too long. Molly and Arthur were just sitting together, heads bowed, hands fisted in the grass, two of their children were dead and gone and the rest were helping either to console the bereaved or were already moving bodies. Remus was shell shocked, breathing too quickly against Sirius's shoulder while Tonks sat with her head bowed against Sirius's back, tears slipping down her cheeks. Countless students had died, so many that should have been hidden, kept safe because they were too young.

Harry sat alone, he had expected to die. In fact, he had wanted it, wished it with all of his might. That somehow killing Voldemort would kill him as well. He wasn't supposed to be alive. But he had accepted that he needed to go back, known that even though his heart had already been broken, that so many more lives would be lost were he to just move on, to be with his Mom and Dad and Severus. They had all been with him in the forest, everyone he had lost, everyone except Severus. And that had hurt.

So Harry screamed and cried and beat his fists into the ground. He didn't stop until Draco appeared in a flurry of torn robes and blood smeared skin and yanked him to his feet with strength that he had no right to possess.

In the end the blonde had been on their side, a spy like Severus. Harry had watched Draco strike down his own father in order to save Hermione; he had seen the look of anguish when he realized that he had been too late to save Ron. And then Draco had vanished, and this point, him shaking Harry with everything in him, was the first time he had set foot on the battlefield since his father died.

"If you love him then shut up and come with me," Draco breathed when Harry latched onto him for a shoulder to cry on. Harry was barely coherent but managed a nod and allowed himself to be led—with Draco's arm firmly around his middle—away from all of the death and misery and into Hogwarts. Bodies were being moved into the Great Hall, a makeshift hospital had been set up and Madam Pomfrey looked taxed to her very last wit.

No one seemed to notice Draco dragging Harry along with him. No one batted an eye at the oddity of longtime school rivals, arms around one another, covered in blood, limping awkwardly among the ranks of the dead. Even Harry seemed to just accept the fact Draco was helping him; there wasn't the faintest glimmer of suspicion in red rimmed eyes. Draco seemed just as broken as Harry, and it appeared that the blonde was only holding himself together long enough to complete whatever task it was that featured Harry.

"Draco, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything," Harry whispered, his voice raw, trembling and weak. He turned his head to look at the blonde beside him and wished that he had something better to say. It couldn't have been easy to be good when the entire world thought you were evil. Draco perhaps, understood Severus best of all, and Harry had been unable to save the other teen's Godfather.

"Don't do that Harry. Don't you start saying sorry for this. Because you can't be, you can't ever be. You just defeated the Dark Lord. If you hadn't started teaching people proper defense and instilled a sense of urgency and self-dependence in this school when you did, we would have many more dead, and a hoard of Death Eater converts. So you just stop that right now and accept the fact that you are a Hero dammit," Draco said, his eyes sharp as they fixed on Harry, silver-grey burning with determination. He had to make Harry understand, he had to make sure that Harry knew what Severus could never understand.

"But I…Severus…" Harry choked, his hand tightening around the fabric of Draco's robes as tears made their way down his cheeks. Draco sighed, Harry truly loved Severus, for whatever reason, the two of them had found common ground and found love in the past year, as difficult as it had to have been to find time for one another.

"What about me?" a velvety dark baritone filled with snark stopped Harry dead in his tracks. Draco reacted a fraction of a second later, catching the Savior of the Wizarding world as he began to fall. It was no easy task; he had been at an awkward angle.

"I hadn't gotten around to telling him Uncle. He thinks you died. He doesn't know that Hermione gave you your kit. And I think you've given him a bloody heart attack," Draco said and maneuvered himself so that he was at a better angle to lift Harry into his arms. It was easier to carry the unconscious boy the rest of the way to the area in which Severus had been placed to heal. To Draco it was clear that the dark eyed man was fighting the urge to leap to his feet and take Harry into his own arms.

"I thought he was dead Draco…I thought I lost him…" Severus's voice was choked and strained as the blonde laid Harry beside him. Pale, trembling hands brushed the hair away from Harry's forehead and Severus Snape began to cry.

"Do you want me to wake him up?" Draco asked offering his wand for consideration.

"No, let him wake up naturally. I can wait a bit longer," Severus replied and turned himself enough that he could wrap his arms around Harry and hold him close. He didn't notice when Draco walked away, or when the Great Hall began to fill up with new patients and new dead. He held onto Harry with everything that he had until exhaustion made him fall asleep.

Neither woke until well into the next afternoon and when they did it was to the realization that they had been moved to the bed in Severus's quarters. They could hear voices in the living room; several people had taken up residence, waiting for the pair to wake up. But Severus just shook his head and pressed his lips against Harry's and relished the first kiss that they had shared this side of the war. They had never woken up together; in fact they had never shared a bed or any similar accommodation. Their romance was fledgling at best, but Severus knew that he never wanted to wake up any other way.

"Severus, I love you," Harry whispered softly, knowing that he hadn't been allowed to say it before now because neither of them had expected to live and it had felt like they were hoping too much to say such a thing. But now that the threat had passed, Harry wanted to say it every second of every day. Severus's arms tightened around the green-eyed man and a smile adorned his lips.

"And I love you Harry," Severus whispered, kissing his younger partner again.

"Come on, we should probably go and chase everyone out," Harry said softly, pulling the blankets away from himself and frowning at what he saw. They were wearing matching sets of pajamas, and he really hoped that no one had seen him naked.

"You didn't think that they'd put us to bed still covered in blood and in tatters did you?" Severus asked with a small smile, following the green eyed imp to the door. With a final kiss, he pulled it open and frowned at the number of people crowded into his small living room. Hermione and the twins were on his couch, still red eyed but obviously ready to wait for good news rather than bad. Remus and Sirius occupied the loveseat with Tonks draped over their laps. And Draco dominated his favorite armchair, clearly in charge of keeping people from intruding on their privacy.

"How long were we asleep?" Harry asked at last, but never got an answer. Hermione smacked into him and hugged him so tightly that it hurt and a grim-faced Sirius rose to face Severus.

There was a long moment of silence and then Severus offered his hand, which Sirius took and used to leaver Severus into a bone-crushing hug.

"It doesn't really matter. Does it? You aren't dead, and that's the point. I had to bring all of them down to see you so that they would believe me," Draco said, a morbid smile on his lips at the scene in front of him. Though both Harry and Severus had in fact died, they had come back to tell the tale. No one dared say that they didn't deserve their second chance, especially not when Severus pulled Harry in and kissed him for all to see.

(A/N: I know that this one probably wasn't as good as it could have been. But my brain started to drift away from me toward the end. It always does when I start trying to make things sappy. Tell me what I need to fix and I will make sure that the next one is better.)


End file.
